Tap Water

Most Americans enjoy high quality drinking water, but contamination by agricultural pesticides and disinfection byproducts is a problem for others. Check out your water supply with EWG’s National Drinking Water Database.

Although scientists and government regulators have long known about the ever-present threat of arsenic in our diet and water, it was unsettling when two major reports came out on the same day (Sept. 19) reminding us of the risk of arsenic in foods, particularly rice.

Guaranteeing a clean and ample supply of water should be at the core of our energy policy. Sometimes Washington seems to have forgotten that. But a recent survey shows that the American people have not.

We walked up to the White House Appointments Desk at 17th Street and State Place NW, headed for the West Wing. The security officer examined Jerry Ensminger's military identification card and then said "Semper Fi!" With no sense of irony, Jerry responded "Semper Fi," the "always faithful" Marine mantra he had repeated so many times before.

This week, EWG joined the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) in filing a suit against California regulators for failing to develop a drinking water standard to protect millions of state residents against contamination by hexavalent chromium, or chromium-6.

The Natural Resources Defense Council and the Environmental Working Group today sued the California Department of Public Health for failing to protect millions of Californians from hexavalent chromium, the cancer-causing chemical made infamous in the movie “Erin Brockovich” for contaminating drinking water and sickening residents in the town of Hinkley, California.

President Obama signed into law today the Honoring America’s Veterans and Caring for Camp Lejeune Families Act, which will provide essential health benefits to veterans and their families who were made ill by contaminated drinking water at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.

The U.S. House of Representatives today passed a bipartisan bill that provides health benefits to veterans and their families exposed to contaminated drinking water at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.

A new Environmental Working Group report examines water pollution caused by farm runoff and details how treating the problem after the fact is increasingly expensive, difficult and, if current trends continue, ultimately unsustainable.

Water that runs off fields treated with chemical fertilizers and manure is loaded with nitrogen and phosphorus, two potent pollutants that inevitably end up in rivers and lakes and set off a cascade of harmful consequences, contaminating the drinking water used by millions of Americans. Treating this water after the fact to clean up the contamination is increasingly expensive, difficult and, if current trends continue, ultimately unsustainable. The only solution that will preserve the clean, healthy and tasty drinking water that people expect is to tackle the problem at the source.

According to a Huffington Post article published today, U.S. Marine Corps officials have urged federal health experts not to release complete information about an ongoing federal water assessment at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, home to the largest documented case of water contamination at a domestic military facilit

Nearly 40 Marine veterans diagnosed with male breast cancer today urged President Obama to support legislation in Congress that would provide health care for those made ill by carcinogenic chemicals that contaminated drinking water at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.

The Environmental Protection Agency has handed a major victory to veterans, civilian workers and families who resided at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina when its drinking water was polluted with the chemical trichloroethylene, a solvent used to remove grease from metal.

Across the nation, water agencies have conducted hundreds of voluntary tests for this pollutant in response to EWG's startling discovery in 2010 that chromium-6 contamination is widespread in Americans' water supplies.